Waxing Nostalgic

Orca Cowboy Take Me Away

This is my Yellowstone.

I love it when old photos pop up.

Who am I?

I do not remember taking this photo. Am I…Ross Perot here, or Dennis Kucinich? It matters not. It does, however, make me wistful for the good old days of political comedy. When we were all playing dress-up and it felt just right. 

Anyway, please don’t ever use this photo of me, if I am otherwise…unable to choose. NOT APPROVED. It’s like one of those photographs they would use if they were talking about me on Fox News or whatnot. They always love to choose one in which you are caught chewing something, or half blinking, or chugging pizza with a FORK.

I am available to be a pizza political advisor.

I’m feeling so nostalgic today! 

Look before we even START, I am reading Kara Swisher’s new book, Burn Book and I am here for it on a hundred different levels. Twelve stars out of ten, *must* read, In fact I am getting so fired up that I practically have to stand and jog in place to read it. It’s a little bit personal history, and a LOT of the modern history of tech bro culture, and the ways in which they have “turbocharged the discord.” I’ll be interviewing Kara soon for Choice Words, and I truly cannot wait.

Speaking of which–this week’s Choice Words features the luminous Lane Moore, comedian, and author of You Will Find Your People, and How To Be Alone: If You Want To, And Even If You Don’t. We talked about Tinder a fair amount and I laughed so hard I forgot all of my questions. But we did wind around to some of the GREAT points that Lane makes in her book which I think are important. Such as: normalize treating adult friendships with the same care and attention you would bring to a partner relationship! ←this was an Aha moment for me.

Last week I interviewed the inimitable Dr. Jen Gunter at the 92nd Street Y, for her essential new book, Blood– and, as promised, I asked some of the questions that readers of this Substack kindly put in the comments.

(There will be a link to the event on the 92nd Street Y website at some point soon. If you are interested in watching the whole thing, I’ll share the link via Instagram when it’s up.)

As expected, the crowd *largely* consisted of women in their 40’s and up, but not exclusively– and so many pertained to menopause, or, as I like to refer to it, ‘de-pubertizing.’ Perimenopause WTF(??!!) was the theme of the day, and though that question is mostly unanswerable, I do appreciate that Dr. Gunter refers to it as “hormonal chaos.” This tracks for me.

Just a regular old Thursday in perimenopause-land.

Dr. Gunter also answered a reader question about Vaginismus, which she told me she sees a LOT. Not in increasing numbers, but often. Tragically she told us all that many women come to her for gynecological care, and never even tell her that they experience pain during sex, because they have lived with pain for so long, they assume that pain is always present during sex. One of her other books, The Vagina Bible covers this topic in great detail.

I was VERY curious about how to proceed if you feel your doctor is gaslighting you, perhaps by denying your lived experience, denying that your pain is real, or even, in the case of someone I know and love–that her body might need a ‘drug break’ from an HRT regimen that is working very well for her? Like why?? “You can pry these jelly packets from my cold, dead hands,” would be my automatic response.

Look it’s HARD to find a new healthcare provider, so that step may not be possible at all. In this case Dr. Gunter suggests arming yourself with knowledge to the best of your ability, and being the squeaky wheel. Go ahead and ASK the question ‘can you show me the study where you found this information?’ Be a nerd, be a Hermione Granger, it’s fine.

And speaking of HRT, when exactly are we supposed to stop??? Well I am sorry to tell you that that is entirely up to you? There is no set date. It’s an entirely personal decision, between you, and yourself, and YOU, (and you can ask your doctor what they think along the way.)

Dr. Gunter and I also spoke extensively about the spread of misinformation on social media. 

UGH.

There is SO much bad information out there of which we are invited to partake! 

In the final chapter in the book, Dr. Gunter writes of The Illusory Truth Effect, which describes our tendency to believe something is true, the more that we are exposed to it. Social media, of course, exploits this weakness in our lizard brains, offering repeat deliveries of hot trash to infinity and beyond. IS THIS WHY MY TEENAGERS BELIEVE THAT SLATHERING THEIR FACES IN WARM OIL WILL GET RID OF THEIR  ZITS??? Yes, but I digress.

I appreciate Dr. Gunter’s approach to misinformation. 

This is difficult advice to put into practice, and it’s definitely a muscle you have to learn to flex, but I am DOING IT.

Here’s how it goes.

1. Someone gives you a piece of questionable information…”Can this be real??” you wonder…

2. Disengage immediately. Stop watching. Stop scrolling. GO. Throw your phone into a river. (JK JK do not do that, you need that phone for work!) Just put it aside, ok?

3. Fact check. Go to a reputable website, a professional association for example. It MUST be separate from the media silo in which you received the questionable intel.

4. If the info you received was, in fact, bad–BLOCK and UNFOLLOW. Without question. Be mean about it. Yes, that influencer offers wonderful recipes for Chaga bowls, but they also advised you to cleanse your cervix with a hot vaginal steam. NO. This is dumb. Chaga be damned. Walk away. 

In short, don’t give ANYONE the chance to give you bad information twice.

I love this. 

Believe me, I put it to good use, across all platforms, and the worst of the worst, which is X.

Funny, a while back they sent me an…invoice? Unprompted. Indicating that if I wanted to maintain my  followers I should pay them…$1200 per month in order to do so? 

Good Lord. This is equivalent to the Columbia Record Club sending me collections notices at the age of ten. You knew, I knew, we all knew that no force on this earth could compel an unwilling Canadian parent to issue a physical check to an American conglomerate just because their child had been sneaky. “My child paid one full penny for those twelve cassette tapes you sent, and I shall burn my home to the ground and move to the moon before you’ll see another.” 

The point is, I did not pay the invoice, never would, and also WHAT???

That said, if you are able to sort through the muck of X, occasionally you’ll dredge up a pearl.

Case in point.

My dream X thread. The thread I will never forget as long as I live, brought to you by Dr. Sarah Taber, a crop scientist, writer, and candidate for Commissioner of Agriculture in North Carolina. 

I learn a LOT from her, and always appreciate folks who are willing to share actual expertise!! (Remember when we collectively believed in expertise???? 

I miss those days.)

God Bless our Apex Predators. 

And wait, there is a magazine called Cowboys and Indians? Over here, all buttoned up on the east coast, I know SO LITTLE about huge swaths of the country. Cowboy world is just one tiny example of the oceans of knowledge I do not possess. I loved this article because it introduced me to something that feels out of reach. It took me by the hand, and brought me to a place.

Here it is again: “The Ranch at the Edge of the West”

As always, it’s good to touch base with the real lives of actual people. We are literally begging for a workable healthcare system in this country.

Which of course led me here, and I THINK WE ARE NOT OK ANYMORE.

To be perfectly honest, each of these vacations sounds like some version of an elaborate escape room, aka my worst party nightmare, aka if you are planning one of these, please lose my number. I did an escape room once for Full Frontal and failed so spectacularly that if Busy Philipps hadn’t been there to pull me through, I simply would have sat down in a corner and died. 

It reminds me of when Sean Parker had a Lord of The Rings themed wedding in Big Sur, which cost maybe ten million dollars, and was an ecological disaster–but–surprise twist–has a happy ending for everyone? SHOCKER.

Full circle moment back to Kara Swisher’s terrific book. God please let him be in there somewhere, I am so curious.

Xo

Sam

PS - If you must have an unauthorized photo of me in costume with no context, let it be this one. Cheers!